Raid
Raid groups are a way to have parties of more than 5 and up to 40 people, divided into up to 8 groups of up to 5 players. The terms "raid" and "raiding" primarily and traditionally refer to PVE raid-specific instances and zones. As party leader, a player can convert their group into a raid group by accessing the "Social" Panel, selecting "Raid", and choosing "Convert Group to Raid." From then on, any new players invited to the group will join the raid group (up to a maximum of 40). This requires at least 2 people (IE a party). A person alone cannot form a raid group. While in a raid group, players do not receive credit for completing quest objectives unless the quest calls for a raid. Players also receive an experience reduction for any mob killed while in a raid group. These are to prevent players from creating very large groups in order to complete normal quests or other game content intended for parties of 5 or fewer. This experience reduction is simply that the usual "group XP bonus" is not applied while in a raid group. Many instances requiring a raid are also subject to a raid timer. Raiding as end-game content Raids are designed as activities for people whose characters have reached the maximum level. As the game does not permit further increase of skills, or introduce new abilities, the only avenues remaining to enhance a character lay in "better gear". Almost all raid events and bosses require that the raid members have particular levels of gear and skill, expressed as dps, damage mitigation, and/or healing ability. In addition, a majority of such bosses also require the group use particular, sometimes unique tactics. While occasionally those tactics mirror those used by smaller groups, they often require things that smaller groups simply don't have the diversity to do. Given these unique requirements, most raid boss encounters require some amount of practice to defeat. Sometimes the peculiarities of a boss encounter are such that being vastly overgeared/overlevel will not permit the raid to ignore the designed tactics. Raiding guilds are guilds that devote some or all of their collective time to playing in raid instances, defeating (or practicing to defeat) raid encounters. They have the advantage of being able to get to know the abilities (or lack thereof) of their various members, and adjust their tactics accordingly. They also have a shared investment in the success of not just that raid, but future raids as well, a feature that "pick up raids" lack. Raiding guilds often use additional measures to enhance their chances of success, notably Voice_over_Internet_Protocol software, and particular addons that provide timing, threat, and other services not available in the base WoW client. Raiding guilds and time commitment There is some academic discussion about the concept of raids as they currently are designed in major graphical MMOs, primarily centered on how much of a player's time they consume. A typical World of Warcraft raid can take 3-4 hours once the group is able to complete it, and can take much more time over many sessions to get to that point. Basically, that it can take up as much of one's time as permitted. Generally, though, practical considerations (work/school schedules, fatigue, etc) will place limits on how much time a group spends raiding. There are, of course, extreme examples, such as a Final Fantasy XI raid that lasted 18 hours before they decided to quit.Final Fantasy XI Guild Spends 18 Hours Fighting Boss, Suffers Physical Torment. World of Warcraft mitigates such long boss fights by adding enrage timers to bosses to ensure that a single fight does not last too long. Given the amount of time involved to be successful, there are some game developers and academics that feel that raiding can be a focus for obsession, impacting a person's ability to care about real life goals and accomplishments.Raiding Provides a False, Deceptive Sense of Real Accomplishment Players should be aware of these factors when deciding if they want to get into raiding or to what extent they want to get into raiding. Starting a raid The leader of a party can convert the group to a raid by clicking the "Convert to Raid" button in the Group window. At this point it becomes a "group of parties" with up to 8 parties, each with 5 characters. The leader of the raid can drag characters between groups to move them to different parties; typically, this is done to achieve some strategic goal such as distributing shamans and paladins to share totems and auras or warriors with rogues for Battle Shout (note that this is no longer needed in current patch). The leader can promote other characters, which gives them the abilities to invite and kick from the raid and also use the broadcast raid warnings (using the "/rw" command). See Raiding for newbies for further details. Raid mods There have been many mods produced specifically for raiding. Raid instances Azeroth Kalimdor :;20-player :*Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (1.9.0) :;40-player :*Onyxia's Lair :*Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (1.9.0) Eastern Kingdoms :;10-player :*Lower Blackrock Spire :*Upper Blackrock Spire :;20-player :*Zul'Gurub (1.7.0) :;40-player :*Molten Core :*Blackwing Lair (1.6.0) :*Naxxramas (1.11.0) Raid outdoor Azeroth :;Outdoor :Level 60 :*Dragons of Nightmare (1.8.0) :**Emeriss :**Lethon :**Taerar :**Ysondre Kalimdor :;Outdoor :*Azuregos (1.3.0) :*Omen Eastern Kingdoms :;Outdoor :Level 60 :*Teremus the Devourer :*Lord Kazzak (1.3.0) Videos References See also * Instance * Instances by level * People in your Raid (silly) * Raid world markers * Raiding guild * Raiding for newbies * Raid AddOns External links ;Official ; News Jun 21st 2012 at 6:30PM}} Jun 20th 2012 at 8:30PM}} ;News Feb 28th 2012 at 8:00PM}} Jun 17th 2011 at 4:00PM}} ;Info Apr 16th 2012 at 12:00PM}} }} }} Sep 9th 2011 at 3:00PM}} Sep 2nd 2011 at 1:00PM}} Aug 26th 2011 at 9:00AM}} Jun 24th 2011 at 6:00PM}} Jun 10th 2011 at 1:00PM}} Jun 3rd 2011 at 6:00PM}} May 27th 2011 at 7:00PM}} de:Raid el:Raid es:Raid fi:Raid fr:Raid hu:Raid it:Raid no:Raid pl:Raid pt-br:Raid ru:Рейд Category:Cross-realm Category:Game terms Category:Gameplay Category:Raids